Two losses mark basketball's re-entry into practice week

Summit Daily/Mark Fox
Summit High women's basketball coach Dylan Hollingsworth rallies his team together during a timeout in a game this past week against Battle Mountain. The Lady Tigers participated this weekend in a tournament on the road at South Park High School.

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Two teams doled out two losses to Summit High's girls' basketball team, putting the Lady Tigers 0-3 on the season.

Both games started strong, with Summit out ahead of Crested Butte 8-0 to start off Friday's game.

"We just kind of let them back in the game," head coach Dylan Hollingsworth said, adding, "It was a three-point game with 54 seconds left."

After a foul to attempt to regain Tiger possession, Crested Butte put the game just out of reach in a 49-42 victory.

"We spent the whole night down one or two points. We were evenly matched teams," Hollingsworth said.

Platte Canyon dealt Saturday's 40-32 loss, which came after another strong start and being down just a few points going into the end of the game.

"We started 12-3. We started big. Then, we got really cold," Hollingsworth said, explaining that wide-open shots were bouncing out. Chaparas had 12 points on the game while junior Meg Heil tallied six.

Still, turnovers again outnumbered steals (numbers were high in both), and Hollingsworth plans to make that a focus in practice. Meanwhile, junior Kayce Chaparas tallied 14 points against Crested Butte, with junior Bailey Thompson the second leading scorer with six points. The rest of the team spread the remaining points out evenly.

Hollingsworth has his eyes on sole senior Alex Benes and junior Lily Weldon, the team's tallest, to develop into another player who can put significant points on the board.

"We did a pretty good job getting offensive rebounds, but we were not putting them back into the basket," Hollingsworth said. "Sometimes, we'd get three or four rebounds on a basket and come away with no points."

Weldon, in particular, has 11 points on the season, but is the leading rebounder.

"As a coaching staff, we have to do a better job getting her to understand how to make the most of her opportunities," Hollingsworth said.

Next up is South Park on Thursday. Hollingsworth is confident his team can compete, and can see they're eager for a win.

"They are definitely frustrated, but they're frustrated because they know they can win," he said.

Summit almost hung with Chatfield's hockey team in the Friday season opener, holding the strong skaters to 2-1 midway through the second period.

"I thought we had a pretty good chance, we were putting pretty good pressure on," head coach Chris Ruhly said.

Two missed assignments resulted in to two Chatfield goals in 15 seconds.

"That took the wind out of the sails at that point," Ruhly said.

Until that point, Summit had been going strong, with Karl Olsson-deem scoring the first goal (and his first varsity goal) roughly a minute after Chatfield had put its second in the net in the second period. Chatfield was up 4-1 heading into the third period, but captain Sean Farley didn't give up, sinking the puck after a lot of back and forth.

Summit outshot Chatfield in the first and second periods and tallied just two penalities to Chatfield's seven on the game. Goalie Reiker Edstrom had 36 saves on the night. The coach was pleased with his young team's performance, though he noticed some little things that practice and game experience typically teach over time: lack of focus and concentration, missed passes and sticks off the ice.

"It's going to be a learning year, a teaching year. We're just a little behind the curve right now. We just need to be a little more focused come game time," he said. "Chatfield is a good team, a quality team. We just made mistakes they were able to capitalize on. We missed a number of opportunities on the power play we need to convert on."

Ruhly said he's disappointed with the loss, but expects to take some lessons home after Friday's play and Saturday's bout with Battle Mountain.

"(The Chatfield loss) puts us 0-1 in conference, and conference gets you into the playoffs," he said.

Wins to losses, Summit wrestling didn't shine in Saturday's Golden Invitational, but head coach Pete Baker says his outlook after the first meet is positive.

"This is setting us up to have a really good year. By January, everybody in that room has a chance to win 50-60 percent of their matches. That's not bad with how new everyone is," he said.

The team forfeited five weight classes due to academic ineligibility (six) and not making weight (two), which automatically cost it 30 points.

"If you take that out, we did really good," Baker said.

At 106 pounds, Carlos Lopez went undefeated while Bryan Daniel, 113 pounds, lost just one match.

Nick Wittrock, for instance, wrestled a handful of last year's state contenders in the 126-pound class. He lost one match by one point and one match by two.

"That's some good wrestling," Baker said, later adding, "All the schools are really solid and competitive schools. All of them have a really good wrestling program. It's the first meet of the year. It lets everyone on the team know where they stand. If you're beating some of the guys there, you're beating guys who are making it to state. If you're losing, you're losing to guys who are making it to state."

On Saturday, the team heads to the Wheat Ridge Invitational, a true tournament where the team will see where it stands among its competition.